


Gunpowder Afternoons

by PoeticallyIrritating



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Ace Beth Week, Asexual Character, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-07 16:40:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1906200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoeticallyIrritating/pseuds/PoeticallyIrritating
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Ace Beth Week. Canon-verse. A little bit of sad Beth/Paul, soccer cop if you squint.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gunpowder Afternoons

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thank you to tumblr user sundialsandsmiles for being my asexuality and gun expert.
> 
> Warnings: Almost all canon Beth warnings (drug abuse, depression, suicidal thoughts); alcohol abuse; guns; sex mention. There’s also discussion of Beth feeling “broken” etc. before she knows that asexuality is a thing, if that is upsetting/triggering to you.
> 
> Oh, and I should mention that while Beth in this fic is fairly sex-averse, I recognize that not every asexual person is sex-averse/sex-repulsed. This is a story about one asexual person and isn't meant to represent every possibility.

Paul isn’t happy. Maybe it’s work—he’s always stressed out these days, it seems like. Or maybe there’s something he’s not telling Beth, something worrying him, because he keeps taking these phone calls and after every one he looks just a little more weary. Or maybe…maybe it’s the sex thing. How Beth turns him away more often than not. How she forces a smug smile when Deangelis groans “What I wouldn’t give for a man like that in my bed” but has no idea what to say. How, no matter how hard she tries, she can’t see it as anything but mechanical, biological: Skin. Fluids. Sex organs. Maybe he’s tired of “no.”

Whatever it is, Paul isn’t happy, and sometimes Beth catches herself thinking, _good._ Better, maybe, for them both to be unhappy. Sometimes they sit across the table from each other, twin miseries, a nightcap turning into glass after glass of bourbon, and the hollowness of his eyes matches hers. Funny to talk about hollowness when they’re both so full of unsaid words, but that’s how it feels in her. How it looks in him. Even the apartment feels empty, all taste and minimalism, all open space.

Alison Hendrix’s home is different: spotless, but anything but empty. Beth should feel terrified, probably, should be focusing on the suburban housewife with her face, but instead she’s looking at the drawings on the fridge. Alison’s asked a dozen questions that Beth doesn’t have the answers to, so instead she gestures at a family photo attached to the fridge with a strawberry-shaped magnet—white parents, brown kids—and says, “Adopted?”

“Oh.” Alison looks up, flustered. “Yes. Oscar and Gemma.”

“So you can’t have kids either.” It’s a wildly inappropriate thing to say, but her politeness is strangled by eighteen months of unshed tears over her empty womb.

“No,” Alison says, stiffly, and Beth thinks she might like this woman.

They get the scientist on Skype after half a dozen attempts, after practicing her name, Co-si-ma Nie-haus, aloud. She’s hastily putting out a joint when she picks up, exhaling a puff of smoke. Beth raises her eyebrows. “You know I’m a cop, right?” she says, and Cosima waves her hands vaguely, grinning. “You don’t have jurisdiction in the States, _Detective_ Childs.” Alison’s drawn her hands over her mouth, apparently speechless at the sight of their dreadlocked, tattooed, pot-smoking genius of a clone.

Cosima’s much better at explaining than Beth is, even if she seems decidedly too _gleeful_ about this whole situation. (Her mind is probably not murmuring a litany of _who am I who am I who am I_ every time she closes her eyes. Her mind has better, cleverer things to do, and besides: she seems to know exactly who she is. Dreadlocks. Nose ring. Tattoos. All _permanent,_ like she’s been preparing for this her entire life. Branding herself.) By the end of the conversation, Alison looks dazed. “Cosima-we’ll-have-to-let-you-go” comes out fast, and then she slams the laptop shut.

“You okay?”

Alison is staring straight ahead. “Yes,” she says, and it’s the least convincing answer Beth has ever heard. “Yes. I just—I—I need to be alone. For a while.”

Beth knows. Snaps to professionalism, saying nothing but a short, unemotional “call if you need anything” before leaving.

-

It takes three weeks for Alison to call. Beth has given up expecting to hear from her, expecting to hear anybody but Cosima on the other end of the burner. (Katja texts.) She picks up with, “What _now,_ Cosima?” but the voice on the other end is decidedly less stoner-geek, more soccer mom. “Is this a bad time?” Alison asks, and Beth looks at her interrupted work, piles of papers stacked high, and says, “No.”

“So,” says Alison, “you said someone is trying to kill us.”

Beth lets out a long, slow breath. “Katja thinks so.”

“Well?” Alison says. “What are you going to do about this?”

Beth feels like laughing. Almost does, almost releases a bark of harsh laughter, but that wouldn’t exactly help keep her in Alison’s good graces (if she’s even made it there), and really, it isn’t all that funny. “Not much I can do,” she says. “I’m a city cop, I’m not the FBI.”

“You have to do _something,”_ Alison says, her voice edging on hysteria. “I don’t even know how to _defend_ myself, for God’s sake! I can’t fend off an assassin with _pepper spray.”_

Beth shuffles some papers. “Can’t necessarily fend off an assassin with a gun, either. But I can help you, if you want. Basic stuff. None of this shit’s going to stop a sniper, but if it’ll make you feel better…”

Silence, and then: “Yes.” Pause. “Yes, I think that would be helpful.” She huffs out a breath that crackles through the phone. “You never know who else might be after us.”

They meet up in a field Beth knows, a place where she used to do target practice with her father. She sets it up the way he used to do for her: a beer bottle on each fence post. Different brand of beer, but just placing the dark-brown bottles on the splintering wood brings back a pang of something that she shoves down. Alison shows up soon after she’s finished, practically buzzing with nervous energy, all tidily contained movement until she sees Beth’s gun, and then she’s frozen. Her mouth opens and closes, wordless.

“Don’t worry,” says Beth. “You’re more likely to kill yourself with a car than with a gun.” (Alison casts a panicked look at her minivan.) “You just have to get used to it.” She holds out the gun. “You can start by holding it.”

Alison responds with a small, rapid shake of her head. “No,” she says. “I’ve never—I’ve never touched a gun before, I—”

“It’s not going to burn you. And the safety’s on.”

When Alison takes the gun, holding it gingerly at arm’s length, she releases a long, shuddering breath.

“Both hands,” Beth urges gently. “That’s good…now hold it like you think you should, pointing it at the target—finger off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot—don’t worry, I’m not going to make you shoot it yet.” She moves in close and nudges Alison’s legs into place. “Good. Now line up the shot—it’s okay, I won’t make you shoot until you’re comfortable—”

“Can I?” There’s something new glittering in Alison’s eyes. Maybe it’s just cold air and adrenaline, but it looks like something else—something ruthless, something Beth never expected.

“Relax a little first. You can’t shoot all tense.”

“I am _not_ tense,” Alison snaps, her knuckles white around the grip.

“Whatever you want to call it,” Beth says mildly. There’s a smile tugging at her lips, but she tries not to let it show. “Just, deep breaths. Ever taken yoga?” She’s grasping for something Alison might relate to, but Alison visibly stiffens.

“Yes,” she says, “and it was a miserable experience that I have no desire to repeat.”

Beth sighs. Just fucking up all over the place today, apparently. “Sorry I brought it up. Just…breathe, okay? Doesn’t have to have anything to do with yoga. Or tension.” She pauses. “Wait, didn’t I see a picture of you in a play? _Oklahoma_ or something, right?”

Alison nods, still stiff. “Among other productions.”

“So you sing.” It’s not a question, but Alison nods anyway. “Singer’s breath, then. Filling up your lungs. In, then out.” The association seems to work. Finally Alison _breathes,_ really breathes; her shoulders drop from where they were tight and hunched, and the tension wrapping every tendon, every muscle fiber, seems to relax a little. “Okay. Now, if you’re ready, you can try. You can take off the safety. Just make sure your stance is solid, and prepare for the recoil. You’re—I’m— _we’re_ small, so it can be powerful.”

It does throw her back a little the first time; she retreats a few feet, almost toppling into Beth. She looks disappointed—no glass shattered, and the bullet could have gone anywhere—but Beth says nothing but “try again.”

It takes her only four shots before she hits a bottle, and she turns back to Beth, breathless, cheeks pink and wind-burned. She’s exhilarated, face twisted with a vicious kind of joy, and there’s something incongruous about it, that expression framed by the bangs straight across her forehead and her pink turtleneck. Beth likes seeing that look on her face maybe more than she should.

As they return to their respective cars, Alison seems to be struggling to discern post-self-defense-lessons-from-your-clone hospitality rules. “Do you—” she begins. Shakes her head. Tries again. “Do you want a glass of wine?”

“Love one,” Beth says.

“My family’s out,” says Alison. “Donnie’s on a business trip, and the kids are with my mother. So we should be—safe—at my house.” Her lip curls around the word “safe.” Not used to worrying about her safety in her own home.

It becomes a weekly tradition, on Saturdays: guns and wine. Alison gets her firearms permit and her own gun, starts to need less help, but neither of them ever suggests canceling a Saturday. (Alison tells Donnie she’s started a spin class; Beth mumbles something about “girls’ lunch” that feels false on her tongue.) When the weather gets warmer and Alison’s house gets busier, Alison starts bringing a picnic blanket.

Beth snorts her laughter. “A _picnic?”_

“Donnie’s home,” says Alison, defensive. “Donnie’s home, and it’s nice out, and I—I thought it would be nice.” She looks close to tears. “I brought cheese. And crackers.”

“It’s nice,” Beth assures her. “Cheese, crackers, wine. Haven’t done anything like this in a long time.”

They settle onto the blanket. The picnic spread includes one bottle of wine, two varieties of crackers, and four kinds of cheese, with a separate cheese knife for each. The cheese and wine, naturally, have been kept on ice in a cooler.

It only takes two glasses of wine for Alison to burst into tears.

“Oh—Alison—”

“Oh God, I’m so sorry”—wiping her tears with her sleeve—“I’m sorry, this is embarrassing, you’ve been so good and professional but I just—I feel so _comfortable_ with you—mother of pearl—” The last bit with the force of a curse.

“It’s okay,” says Beth, and doesn’t know what she means by it.

“Beth,” Alison whimpers, “I don’t think I’m in love with Donnie anymore!” Her voice goes shrill at the end of her sentence. “Oh, Judas Priest,” she gasps, and collapses, sobbing into the front of Beth’s shirt. Beth strokes her back, making soft soothing sounds, murmuring things like “shh” and “It’ll be all right” and feeling, every time, like she’s _lying._ It feels fake, these nonsense, mindless words. The kind of fake words Alison’s fake housewife friends would give her, words underscored with pity and disdain.

When Alison’s breathing has slowed, when she’s lifted her head from Beth’s chest, Beth thinks of something real she can say instead. “Paul isn’t in love with me,” she says. “I don’t know if he ever was.” It sounds bleaker than it did in her head, bleak enough that neither of them says anything for a moment.

“But—” Alison shakes her head, wiping the last tears from the corners of her eyes with her sleeve. “How could he not be in love with _you_?” she asks, and suddenly Beth wants to cry, too.

“I’m falling apart.” She’s never said it out loud, not even to Dr. Bowers. Her voice is shaking and she can’t do anything to stop it. “I’m falling apart, and no matter how many different goddamn prescriptions I get it’s not getting better. And apparently I’m—defective—anyway.” It’s more than she meant to say.

“Defective?” Alison looks shattered.

Beth wishes, suddenly, that she hadn’t said anything. She’s seen how Alison looks at her with her eyes shining, how her lips move reverential around her name— _Beth_ —and now she has to tell her she’s not worthy of any of it. “Defective,” she says again, spitting it like poison, but Alison doesn’t look away. “I don’t…want to have sex with Paul,” she says, and waits, the weight of a hundred you-should-be-glad-to-be-with-a-man-who-looks-like- _that_ s on her chest.

“Okay,” says Alison, nodding. Waiting. She’s brought a hand to her throat, startled visibly by the word _sex,_ but she doesn’t look away.

“I don’t—even know if I’m attracted to him. Or—” She feels hot, suddenly, her breathing coming shallower. Anxiety claws at her from the inside but she forces the words out: “Or _anyone,_ really.”

Alison tugs at her turtleneck. “Really? Are you”—she’s shifting uncomfortably, clearly not used to talking about things this frankly—“are you sure?”

Beth chuckles and it’s painful against her tight chest. “Pretty damn sure.”

“Not—not women, like Cosima?”

“No.”

“Okay…” says Alison slowly, nodding as if talking it through with herself _._ “Okay.”

“I keep saying no to him,” Beth says dully. “And he resents me.”

“In—” Alison looks, somehow, even more flustered. “In bed?”

Beth nods. Alison nods back, and Beth, absurdly, wants to laugh at the two of them, sitting in a mess of cracker crumbs with their heads bobbing back and forth.

They sit in silence for a while.

“I’m sure there’s a _reason,”_ says Alison. “Maybe you could ask Cosima, maybe it’s got something to do with—”

“I’m not asking Cosima shit,” says Beth. “If it had something to do with being a cl—genetic identical, you would be—too—and you’re not, are you?” She allows herself a brief surge of hope before Alison shakes her head _no._ “Just because I’m not attracted to Donnie anymore—” She can’t finish her sentence; the laughter that cuts it off is high and hysterical.

-

Beth spends the next Saturday in a drugged stupor on the couch. If Alison worries when she doesn’t show up, she doesn’t say a word. Her next call comes on Monday.

“I’ve been doing research,” says Alison.

“And good morning to you.” There’s a snarl in her voice; it’s nine in the morning and she’s already been spit on by a drug dealer.

“I’ve been doing research,” Alison repeats, “and I made a chart.”

“A chart.” Whatever Beth took that morning is making her heart pound more than it should; she presses her hand against her chest as if to slow it down. “What are you talking about?”

“Like a checklist!”

“Alison, you could give me some _fucking_ context here.”

Silence on the other end, nothing but the faint rustle of Alison’s breathing.

“Jesus, Ali. I didn’t mean to snap at you.” She huffs out a breath. Her pulse is still drumming too fast, pulsing in her temples against the oncoming headache. “I’m sorry.”

“Well”—her voice is tighter now—“if you want to see it you can come to the basement door at ten tonight.”

She goes. (Because it’s important. Because Alison’s voice was wavering even though she was trying to sound strong. Because Alison’s voice always seems to be a little shaky, these days.) Alison meets her at the door and ushers her inside, and when she gets in they stand in silence for a while. Finally Alison says, “Thank you for coming,” a little stiffly.

“Yeah, I’m here.” She can’t bring herself not to be cold. She just put away a killer and her stomach is still clenched with horror, with _don’t trust don’t love the world will let you down_ —feelings Paul should understand but doesn’t, feelings she writes long miserable letters about at four in the morning when she’s given up on sleep. Feelings Alison Hendrix, soccer mom and crafter extraordinaire, probably couldn’t understand either. She still takes things like _being loved_ for granted. Even as she falls out of love with her husband she never doubts that _he_ loves _her._

Alison pulls out a piece of cardstock from under a pile of colorful projects, and it’s all careful handwriting and neat black lines. She’s less certain now, though, made tentative by the harsh line of Beth’s mouth. “I—” she begins, then cuts off. She’s hugging the cardstock to her chest.

“Alison,” says Beth, “I’ve been up since five in the morning. Please get to the point.” (Her headache is gone, now, but some combination of painkillers and exhaustion is making her vision blur around the edges.)

“I found some information,” Alison says. “About—you know—”

Beth’s exhale is weary. “I really don’t.”

“What you said about—Paul.”

“Jesus Christ,” Beth says, and Alison flinches. “Forget I said anything. I didn’t mean to put that on you. Things to take to the therapist’s office, shit.”

“I don’t trust them,” says Alison.

“Therapists?”

“Con men, all of them.”

Beth raises her eyebrows. “Mine’s a woman.”

Alison shakes her head. “I—appreciate that you told me—I mean—there are people—who feel the same way. That you do. About”—she hesitates—“intercourse.”

“Really.”

Alison’s head jerks rapidly up and down. “Apparently it’s—it’s—normal.”

“Normal?” Beth raises her eyebrows. She can see Alison conjuring a mental image of _normal._ Probably something like Alison’s existence, but with a happier wife, and kids who inherited their parents’ DNA.

“Natural,” she amends. “I asked Cosima—”

“You _what?”_ Beth’s rage rises hot in her face.

“I gave her a fake name, Beth. I said it was Charity. Honestly, if you don’t trust _me_ to be discreet…” She pauses, waiting until Beth nods at her to go on with a jerk of her head. “Cosima said—she said it’s like red hair.”

“Red hair?”

“Red hair is uncommon,” Alison says primly, “but perfectly natural. And so is—” She shoves the cardstock at Beth, finally. _Asexuality Checklist_ is written in looping letters across the top.

“Asexuality,” Beth reads. Rolls the word around on her tongue. Breaks it down, like in high school English class— _a-_ , a prefix meaning _without._ _Sexuality_ , self-explanatory. Somewhere deep in her belly is still roiling with fury at the thought of Alison and Cosima calmly discussing her private life over a glass of wine and a joint. (Cosima’s face moving close into the camera, her image on the computer screen turning fishlike with the proximity of her wide eyes.) She glances over the chart, a list of “I” statements with _yes, no,_ and _maybe_ boxes beside them. _I lack interest in sex beyond the academic,_ reads one. “I can’t decide for you,” says Alison. “The websites made that _very_ clear. But I thought maybe—”

Beth drops the chart to the floor, feeling sick. “I _made_ that,” says Alison, all indignance, and Beth can’t bring herself, right now, to care about Alison’s crafting-related self-esteem. She takes it with her when she leaves, though, because Alison shoves it into her hands, saying, _“Please.”_

-

The chart gathers dust tucked away in Beth’s closet for a week…two weeks…three. Her head is pounding all the time, and her lucid moments are used for feverish research, time spent hunting facial-recognition databases and digging through websites full of faked photos and white-on-black text until her eyes burn, hoping for some grain of truth in forums full of people claiming alien abduction, mysterious disease, government conspiracy. Alison has confessed theories to her before shaking her head, saying, “You must think I sound completely paranoid.” But Alison’s paranoia has nothing on Beth’s, not really; the flashing text and disturbing images creep into her brain, and her nightmares are darker than they’ve ever been. Paul wakes her in the middle of the night, stroking her shoulder with a tenderness that makes her shudder with its falseness, and he tells her she was screaming in her sleep again. The distrust must reek from her at this point; it feels like it’s seeping from her pores. Sometimes when he wakes her up to make sure she’s still breathing, some sick part of her wonders if he’s just worried about his _experiment._ (But it’s not Paul’s experiment; it stretches the Atlantic; whatever it is there’s no way he’s involved. Just her paranoia talking. Just the pills talking. Not Paul.) (She asks Raj to borrow surveillance equipment and pretends her voice isn’t shaking, pretends this isn’t another sign that she’s spiraling out of control.)

Finally, one night when she’s arched away from Paul’s mouth on her neck again, when he’s shaken his head at her and gone to sleep on the couch “because clearly you don’t want me here,” she pulls out the chart again. (She does want him here, she does and she doesn’t; she doesn’t want him feeling false and predatory beside her; she wants him warm and soft-voiced and comforting. Like he used to be.)

There’s a note at the top, in Alison’s looping handwriting, probably copied from a website: _Most asexuals don’t say yes to all of these questions. They are provided for you to get an idea of what many asexuals experience, and to serve as a tool—not the final word—in helping you decide whether you want to identify as asexual._

Beth digs out a Sharpie from the drawer—if she’s doing this, she’s not going to half-ass it—and she goes down the chart.

_Oh._

She stares at the ceiling for a long time when she’s finished. Then she pulls out her laptop.

It’s two a.m. and her headache is pounding in her ears. But she reads stories on message boards and her nails dig into her palms at how much she relates to these teenagers who seem to have themselves way more figured out than she does. (Most of them don’t even seem afraid.) (Some of them are afraid but _proud,_ and there’s an ache in Beth’s chest when she reads their stories. All this time she’s been ashamed.) The words blur in front of her eyes and she thinks it’s the headache, thinks it’s her tiredness, but she goes to rub her eyes and they’re wet.

In the morning, at work, she calls Alison. “Hello?” comes Alison’s voice. And Beth says nothing, suddenly unable to convince her mouth to form words. “Beth?” Alison’s voice again, more insistent. “Beth?” Uneasily: “Is this some kind of a joke?”

“Alison,” she manages finally. She leans back against the counter of the station bathroom. “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry?”

“For giving me that…chart.” The sincerity gets stuck in her throat, but she forces it out. “That was…thank you.” She wants to say more. Things like: _That’s one of the most selfless things anyone’s ever done for me._ Or: _Thank you for worrying about me._ But vulnerability is for miserable late nights hunched over a letter; it feels wrong here, here where she’s all blazer and badge, harsh lines and fast draw and _you have the right to remain silent._ Instead she says, “Are we still on for Saturday?”

“Oh!” says Alison. “Of course.”

They spread out the picnic blanket again, use wine to cover the smell of gunpowder lingering on them both. Cheese and crackers, just like before. But it’s different. It’s not a normal feeling, this sense of peace. Her mind is still racing about this; a dozen new words are spinning through her head, a whole new vocabulary on top of all the old worries. But shooting clears her mind. And the wine and the sunshine freckling her nose and shoulders lend her some temporary happiness, something giddy and fleeting that makes her laugh, makes her nudge Alison’s shoulder in an aborted, quickly-thought-better-of punch to the arm. Alison laughs too, and together they clear the dust from their mirth-deprived lungs.

Their Saturday traditions go on as before, with only that one missed weekend to interrupt them. During the week Beth digs into corporate histories, military documents, religious manifestos. She takes a plane to Cincinnati to meet a man with her face. She bites her lip bloody and holds her worry tight in her chest and swallows half a dozen pills in the morning, eyeing the full bottles with something like longing. But Saturdays are golden sunlight and picnics in the tall green grass, Beth tracing the floral-patterned blanket with her index finger, watching the way Alison’s mouth moves as she details the latest suburban scandal.

Saturdays are perfect, almost, but they belong to summer. And summer ends.


End file.
